The food processing industry is a fast growing business which is expected to increase at a steady pace in the years to come. The active and busy lifestyles of consumers, combined with an increasing consciousness for healthy products, results in a growing demand for convenient, fresh and healthy food. The market for fresh-cut vegetables and fruits has grown dramatically as a result of these consumers requirements, and new products are developed continuously to satisfy the desire for creative new products in the convenience market.
Fresh-cut vegetable products include a rather broad range of vegetables such as various types of lettuce, rocket, spinach, corn salad, other leafy vegetables, peppers, carrots, cabbage, celery, and various sprouts. They can be offered individually, or ready-to-use mixes of vegetables can be prepared. Also combinations with fruits, herbs, or nuts, optionally even including seasoning to reach a yet higher level of convenience, are highly attractive to consumers as a basis for a quick and healthy meal or snack.
However, not all vegetables and fruits are considered suitable to be combined into such pre-cut products. Wounding of the plant and fruit tissue due to the cutting or further processing of the vegetables or fruits leads to faster deterioration, which means these products have a limited shelf life. Deterioration can show as discolouration or flaccidity, but also an increased susceptibility to microbial spoilage. Especially vegetables and fruits that contain a high moisture content are often not considered to be eligible for pre-cutting and incorporation into fresh-cut salads or other products.
Cucumber is an example of one of those vegetables that is very difficult to use in the pre-cut convenience market. Even when parthenocarpic cucumber fruits are used, the core or seed cavity is so moist that cutting it leads to too fast spoilage of the resulting product. Still, cucumber is highly desired to be combined into various mixes, since its taste and texture properties can be easily matched with many other products. One solution for this, which is practiced, is that after cutting the core or seed cavity is removed, so that only the drier flesh surrounding it is left to combine into fresh-cut products. This however requires additional costs and labour, and moreover leads to more waste. The potential waste for this process is calculated to reach about 25%.
Another application for which cucumber is less suitable because of its high moisture content is the use in cooking, for example in stir-frying.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a parthenocarpic cucumber fruit that has a lower total moisture content which makes it more suitable to be used in the fresh-cut vegetable industry.
During the research that led to the present invention a genetic determinant, in particular a QTL, was identified that, when present in a parthenocarpic cucumber fruit, results in a small seed cavity of the fruit. The result of the smaller seed cavity is that the contribution of the moisture in the core or seed cavity to the total moisture content of the cucumber fruit is less resulting in a lower total moisture content of the fruit.
Citation or identification of any document in this application is not an admission that such document is available as prior art to the present invention.